Many companies have learned that designing an appealing customer experience isn’t the hard part. It’s usually an achievable goal to find out what customers like. And one step further, organizations are usually able to build an attractive-looking front end—whether physical, digital, or a mix of the two — that will, in appearance, meet those preferences. However, KPMG’s research proves only around 30 percent of enterprises feel they’ve received the expected return from those investments on enhancing customer experience. Why is this so?

To successfully execute these new customer experience enhancements, organizations need to align the rest of the enterprise with their plan – a complex and difficult task to succeed in. Additionally, they need to ensure the initiative delivers value to the enterprise, which requires a deep understanding of exactly what the customers both want, and need. For these reasons, many customer experience investments end up losing money for the company.

To avoid that trap, organizations need to start by answering two key questions: